Watermelon Radish & Dandelion Green Salad

March is always the hardest month of the year for me. By March I’m stir crazy with winter and I’m itching for a change- a change in climate, a change in season, a change in dinner options. By March I find myself walking through the grocery store, desperately searching for food grown a little closer to home than Honduras or California, striking out week after week. Year after year I find myself in a food rut where my commitment to sustainable agriculture comes head to head with my total exhaustion with root vegetables. It gets to the point where I’m ready to just throw in the towel and shop exclusively from the frozen section of Trader Joe’s (because pastry puffs).

In ways other than food, the past few months have been incredibly hard. I lost a friend, I’ve watched helplessly as another friend set out on an incredibly difficult journey, I’ve caught every bug and flu going through school… things in our lives have been in a state of constant upheaval. Thanks to the past month my students have started describing our days as caddywhompus. The dreary diet of late winter is insult to injury to everything else that has been going on, and I am ready for some big changes. Changes in weather, changes in health, changes in menu. Slowly but surely, it’s coming. The temperatures are rising, greenhouses are bursting with greens, and each day is a step forward. It’s almost Spring.

10 Comments

Elena, I love your “about” page, where I wandered after reading this post. So sorry that the past few months have been difficult for you. Spring is coming – I promise and with that, lots of locally grown food besides root vegetables. But in the meantime, what a wonderful salad. I’m kind of obsessed by radishes at the moment and have never heard of watermelon radishes, so now I have to seek them out. I don’t find dandelion greens around Washington DC (or maybe I don’t look hard enough) but I’m figuring that if I find the radishes, I can approximate this salad. All my best, Laura PS – I have a niece who just graduated last year from MICA with a degree in photography , so I was not surprised that your photography is gorgeous:)

Elena,
I look at the remaining squash in the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve and think ‘nah, not in the mood’. I open the freezer to see the corn and greens and roasted vegetables I put up in the fall and think ‘meh’. The sun is shining–even though my garlic has just peeked up through the winter layer of compost I’m ready for FRESH!
This salad looks so fresh–thanks!